Monday, June 23, 2008

An Olive Oil Incident

The following is a true story from my dear friend Sandy:

Sun, 8 Jun 2008 14:49:08 -0400Hi,Today we bought a bottle of olive oil that was a product of Israel, from Job Lot. The temperature is pretty warm today; we brought it in and put it on the kitchen counter next to the stove. I started to cook some sausages for our lunches for the week. I was using the large burner on the opposite side from where we had put the olive oil. All of a sudden the bottle exploded spilling about 24 of the 25 oz that was in the bottle down the side of the stove, and on the stove top. I don't know why it exploded, but it did. I just wanted everyone to be aware that this could happen, it could have been worse if I were about to use it and gotten cut. Okay so the bottom line is it might be a good idea to put glass containers in the sink for a while until they get used to being in the warmer heat. It will be easier to clean up than the mess we just had.

PS, Since I have written this I have spoken to my daughter, who works as a chef, she has said that olive oil is a living organism, it would have helped to cool the temperature of the oil, if I had put it in the refrigerator. If you are afraid of having a mess to clean up there, pour the oil into a pan that you have planned to use with olive oil to help cool the contents, and then pouring it back into the bottle after a while. Having to wash a pan even if you didn’t use it would be better than having to clean up the mess I did, and I was lucky that I didn’t get cut with the glass.

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

G'day Nomi,I suspect that your problem was one of simple physics and that the olive oil simply expanded beyond the capacity of the sealed glass bottle.May I suggest that another alternative is to take the lid off any bottle of liquid that you intend to stand beside a source of heat.